BMC to probe Sena corporator’s allegations

The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) will conduct an inquiry into the allegations made by a Shiv Sena corporator saying that contractors are dumping construction debris in the guise of silt collected from drains at the Deonar dumping ground to make money.

The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) will conduct an inquiry into the allegations made by a Shiv Sena corporator saying that contractors are dumping construction debris in the guise of silt collected from drains at the Deonar dumping ground to make money.

Mohan Lokegaonkar, a Shiv Sena corporator and chairman of the civic works committee for suburbs, complained to the additional municipal commissioner about erring contractors of the Storm Water Drain department (SWD).

He also asked for an inquiry in to the matter alleging the involvement of some BMC employees. Lokegaonkar also said the vigilance department should conduct the inquiry and not the SWD.

“Ideally, the complaint should have been forwarded to the civic vigilance department for further inquiry but instead, it has been sent to the department that is involved in the case,” said Lokegaonkar.

However, Aseem Gupta, additional municipal commissioner said, “We will hand over the complaint to the vigilance department.”

Civic contractors dump silt, collected from nullah’s during pre-monsoon cleaning, at the Deonar dumping ground where civic employees keep a record of each vehicle using close circuit television cameras.

Lokegaonkar alleged that in many cases, a mukadam has signed on the receipts instead of the engineers and has cleared the vehicles carrying debris.

“We should keep a check on the work for which we are spending Rs76 crore of public money for cleaning nullahs,” he added.

As per the report, 99.53% of the nullah cleaning work has been completed in the city, of which 100% has been completed in the island city, 99.85% in the eastern suburb and 99.25% in the western suburb has been cleaned as of June 12.

Normally, the BMC does 70% nullah cleaning work before the monsoon begins, while 20% of the work is done during monsoon and 10% after monsoon. Mumbai has more then 200km of major nullahs and 129km of minor nullahs. The city has 1,986 km of roadside drains, which finally converge into the minor nullahs.